Trade Union Bill (Discussions)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman made a valuable contribution to our deliberations at all stages, but perhaps especially in Committee. I seem to remember that his criticism was both vocal and incisive on almost every measure in the Bill. Of course, he is right. Not only do we hold discussions with institutions in society about which we are legislating—I think it would be a little unfair if we did not—but we actually invited them to give evidence to the Committee. One of the most terrifying sights that I have seen in a long time was the general secretary of Unite, the general secretary of the GMB, the general secretary of Unison and the general secretary of the TUC all sitting in a row giving evidence to that Committee. Of course it was right to do that.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that we have consulted the devolved Administrations. I have had a number of conversations by phone and in person with Ministers in the devolved Governments, who have expressed some concern about whether all the provisions in the Bill should properly apply to them, although we are absolutely confident that all the provisions in the Bill relate to reserved matters and therefore apply to everyone and every trade union in the United Kingdom.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I chaired the Trade Union Bill Committee, and therefore I am not going to comment on the Trade Union Bill, but may I make a general House of Commons and constitutional point? There would be concern if, as part of the ping-pong process, any Government at any time made concessions on a Bill as a result of something that had nothing to do with that Bill. My hon. Friend is an honourable man, and I am sure that he can confirm that no Government of which he was a part would ever do that.

[Nick Boles]

I think I have explained pretty clearly what the process was. I speak for myself in simply saying that when I met the immovable force of Lord Burns, I decided that perhaps discretion was the better part of valour. That is not to say that Ministers do not have discussions on all sorts of issues with all sorts of people in society. It is the Government’s policy to support the remain campaign. The previous general secretary of the TUC is a board member of Stronger In and has been for months. The trade unions that I have listed made their positions very clear long before the Bill came back to this House or, indeed, the opt-in was considered in the upper House. I gently say to my hon. and right hon. Friends that not every compromise is a conspiracy.

Schools White Paper

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I, too, trust parents and governing bodies. I note that there is an appetite across the country for parents, governing bodies, heads and teachers to take more responsibility for their schools, and, rather than being told what to do by local authorities, to make the real choices that are best for their schools, their pupils and their communities. I look forward to engaging in that debate with my hon. Friend.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I will take one last intervention.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I think the Secretary of State will confirm that we are talking about a White Paper. I know that she will listen carefully to colleagues, but will she also work with Conservative-controlled county councils such as Lincolnshire, which have a wonderful record of keeping small primary schools open? The possibility of their closing is what we are fearful of. May we, at the end of this process, have a compromise whereby county councils will not necessarily be forced to give up control of their small primary schools? It is essential for them to be kept open in rural areas. I know that the Secretary of State wants to proceed in a spirit of compromise, and does not wish to force anything on anyone.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, I met some members of the Local Government Association and council leaders this morning to discuss exactly that issue. They welcomed the moves that we are making to clarify how the system will look in the future, and also the option of supporting schools which are providing excellent services, because there is nothing to stop the provision of those services from continuing. We will, of course, have more discussions as the programme proceeds.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

It has now been the best part of 24 hours since the Chancellor delivered his Budget. There are some things in it that I would like to welcome. On the sugar tax, we look forward to seeing more detail about how it will be put into practice. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) who said yesterday that we needed a comprehensive strategy to tackle the growing problem of obesity. I regret, therefore, that £200 million has been cut from public health budgets this year—those are the budgets that were to be used to develop that strategy.

We are also pleased that the Chancellor is looking at addressing savings overall, though we wonder whether the new lifetime individual savings accounts will do much to address the scandal of low retirement savings for the less well-off. On the rise in tax thresholds, we welcome anything that puts more money in the pockets of middle and low earners, but we wonder how that aim can sit alongside the Conservatives’ plans to cut universal credit.

It is about time that we had some straight talking about what this Budget means. It is an admission of abject failure by the Chancellor. For the record, in the six years that he has been in charge of the nation’s finances, he has missed every major target he has set himself. He said that he would balance the books by 2015, but the deficit this year is set to be more than £72 billion. He said that Britain would pay its way in the world, but he has overseen the biggest current account deficit since modern records began.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I want to help the Labour party in every way that I can. I want it to be credible at the next election, but the shadow Chancellor took to the airwaves this morning and talked about borrowing more money. Will he give us an absolute commitment that, if he were to become Chancellor, he would not borrow more money than the present Chancellor? He can just say yes.

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Compared with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I am a mere callow youth in the House, having sat through only 35 Budgets, I think, and spoken in most of them. I sometimes feel I am constantly repeating the same theme, but generally in this place, unless one stays with a personal theme and keeps repeating it, one will probably not get anywhere.

Over those 35 Budgets, I have argued constantly for tax simplification. For instance, the cut in corporation tax is no doubt greatly welcomed by our larger companies, which have been the biggest cheerleaders for our remaining in the UK, but whatever they save from these modest cuts in corporation tax has been clawed back in other parts of the Budget. Unless we can achieve tax simplification and move gradually towards a flatter tax system, instead of having one of the longest tax codes in the developed world—as long as India’s—we will never make progress on tax avoidance.

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

My hon. Friend’s consistency and sagacity are well established in the House, and I take his point about tax simplification, but would he not agree that the best form of simplification is to take people out of the higher tax band and out of tax altogether? Is that not the ultimate simplification and precisely what the Chancellor has done—once again—in this Budget?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, of course I acknowledge that, and I congratulate the Chancellor, the Government and my right hon. Friend the Minister on creating an economy in which more people are in work than ever before and more people are being taken out of tax than ever before. We are returning to the historical position of actually making work pay for people at the bottom of the heap. Helping people at the bottom of the heap and taking them out of tax is what the Government should be doing. So everything he says is absolutely right.

If I make a few suggestions or criticisms in the few minutes allowed to me, I do not want it to take away from the Government’s achievement in their macroeconomic management of the economy, and nor do I want to resile from my criticism of Labour Members, who must learn from history and become a credible Opposition. It is not good enough for the shadow Chancellor to come to the House today and refuse to answer any questions about his borrowing plans. There is no point just repeating a generalised mantra about borrowing to invest. It is fair enough to say that—it is the old golden rule of Gordon Brown, and we know how that was broken—but one must be prepared to provide concrete facts and figures. Would the shadow Chancellor borrow more than the present Government?

I repeat, however, that I am in favour of a much-simplified, flatter tax system, and in that context, I recognise that the Chancellor is at last—I have been campaigning for this for years—indexing the higher 40p tax band.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman in terms of the position he describes in respect of the Opposition. That did not stop his party in opposition agreeing to all the tax and spending proposals and all the Budgets right up to 2008 but then, as soon as it was in government, condemning the Labour Government for overspending—we heard that again today from the Front Bench.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

All I can say is: not in my name.

I agree with tax simplification. The sugar tax is a fairly benign proposal and is not coming in for two years, but, generally speaking, as a Conservative, I believe we should cut people’s taxes and then let them make their own choices. We all know there is as much sugar in Heinz tomato soup, which I love and is not going to be taxed, or in some of these baguettes one can buy from one of the increasing number of coffee shops in the Westminster village, as there is in Pepsi or Coca-Cola. These companies, of course, will find a way around it—they will probably just ensure that a Diet Coke costs the same as a normal bottle of Pepsi.

I should mention, however, that the Chancellor is repeating a mistake perhaps made in the 18th century. The 1765 Sugar Act, which imposed a tax on sugar, led to boycotts of British-made goods in Boston and sporadic outbreaks of violence on the Rhode Island colony. It was one of the Acts, along with the more famous Stamp Act, that provided ample inspiration for the American revolution. I say to the Chancellor, if he is listening, that we should be aware of that lesson from history.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) mentioned the proposal for a mayor. I was quietly sitting over there, gently dozing, as the Chancellor was going through his complicated plans for business rates, when suddenly I sat up with a start, because he said we were going to have a mayor of Lincolnshire. I was not consulted, although when I talked to a colleague last night—I will not say who—he said, “Well, of course we didn’t consult you, because we knew you’d be against it.”

It is true that some of the greatest achievements in local government have been made by the mayors of great cities—I am thinking of the likes of Joe Chamberlain—and I have nothing against cities such as Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham and London having mayors, but mayors are for towns. Are they for huge rural areas such as Lincolnshire? It takes an hour and a half to drive up the southern part of Lincolnshire to Stamford, where the Minister’s constituency lies, and another hour and a half to get up to Grimsby. Does it make sense to have a mayor? None of my local councillors wants a mayor, but they have been bribed into accepting one, although it is only a draft proposal, and they can still vote it down in their councils.

If councils want a mayor, I will not stand in their way, but they should consider it very carefully. The fact is they would have preferred a devolution of power from the centre, which is fair enough. They are being offered another £15 million a year. They would like a co-operative body, comprising the existing district and county councils, with a rotating chair, to disburse the extra £15 million, but they have been told by the Chancellor that, unless they accept a mayor, they will not get the £15 million. That is quite wrong. It is not true devolution; true devolution is passing powers down.

We have experience of this, in the imposition of the police and crime commissioner. It was not done with public consent, there was a derisory turnout, an independent was elected in Lincolnshire, and the first thing he did was to fall out with the chief constable, and we have barely made progress since then. I say to the Chancellor and the Government: we are Conservatives and we believe in true devolution. They should not attempt these top-down solutions. An elected mayor might work fine in the big cities, but it is not necessarily the right thing for a large rural county such as Lincolnshire. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset, who talked about money being sucked into Bristol, I worry about money being sucked from rural areas up into Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln.

The Conservative-controlled county council is doing an excellent job. It is not fair that a large part of its budget will be sucked out through the academisation of schools, leaving it with a share of the extra £15 million. I am a strong supporter of academies, but I believe in true independence and devolution. We have a mixed system in north Lincolnshire: we have grammar schools and some very good comprehensive schools. We should not insist, in an area such as Lincolnshire, which has some excellent schools, that the county council give up control of all its schools. In rural areas, we have some very small schools, with just 50, 60 or 100 children, and a top-down, imposed solution is not necessarily right for the education of the kids.

In conclusion, there are many good things in the Budget and in what the Government are doing, but I urge them to pause and listen to local opinion on the imposition of mayors in rural areas.

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[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I rise to support the Budget statement, particularly for the support it gives to small businesses. Of the 4,000 businesses in my Congleton constituency, all but a handful are small and medium-sized enterprises, started up and sustained by hard-working individuals and their supportive families. It is right to champion the value of and encourage SMEs, which are the lifeblood of my local economy.

It is a truism, but it is well said that every big business started small. When Lord Digby Jones was head of the CBI he said that

“without businesses there are no taxes and without taxes there are no schools or hospitals.”

I am therefore delighted that the Chancellor is taking 600,000 small businesses across the country out of bearing the burden of any business rates at all, while another 250,000 firms receive a reduction in those rates. This will save small businesses £6.7 billion over the next five years, enabling them to take on more staff, invest and grow. I know it will be warmly welcomed in my constituency.

Welcome, too, are the new tax-free allowances of £1,000 a year for micro-entrepreneurs who trade goods or rent property online on a small scale. Positive, too, are reductions in capital gains tax, the reform of stamp duty on commercial premises to help small firms move to bigger premises and, for incorporated businesses, the substantial reduction in corporation tax to 17% in 2020—down from 28% in 2010. This means that we will have the lowest corporation tax in the G20, and it will benefit more than a million businesses.

For 3 million self-employed people, the cancellation of class 2 national insurance contributions is also welcome. Some may say, “Well, that’s only a saving of £2.80 a week”, but that fails to appreciate that many small businesses live on the margins, particularly in the early years, as I know from experience. My husband and I had to sell our home to keep our business going, and live above our offices with our first child, with the staff tea and coffee-making area being our kitchen.

My story is not unusual, and I mention it only because that is so and because I know that, just as Government support for small business matters, so does Government support for the families who stand behind the businesses. Stable families contribute to a stable economy. If we want small business to flourish, we need families to flourish, too. It is important to note that these are related: the one sustains and supports the other. I therefore greatly welcome the Government’s commitment to including family stability measures in their life chances strategy. However, just as family stability supports business, family breakdown has a negative impact on productivity. According to a survey conducted by Resolution, the family justice organisation, one in seven workers said that relationship breakdown had had a negative impact on their businesses’ productivity.

In his Budget statement, the Chancellor said:

“We as Conservatives understand that tax affects behaviour.”

I welcome that, and I therefore also welcome the tax on sugary drinks, which the Chancellor is introducing to incentivise healthy behaviour. He said many times that it was

“to help children’s health and wellbeing”,

and that this was

“a Government not afraid to put the next generation first.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 964.]

May I urge the Chancellor also to do what he can to encourage healthy family relationships for our next generation?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The marriage tax allowance that the Chancellor has introduced is still very low. Moreover, its aim is not, as has been claimed, to encourage people to get married and stay married, but simply to remove the disadvantages in the overall tax and benefit system that are incurred by women who look after their children at home. Will my hon. Friend say a word about the allowance, and about how we should upgrade it?

[Fiona Bruce]

I will, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue.

The Prime Minister said recently:

“Families are the best anti-poverty measure ever invented. They are a welfare, education and counselling system all wrapped up into one.”

I have heard that the cost to the national health service of treating child obesity has been estimated at £5 billion. By contrast, the cost of breakdown is £48 billion. Increased investment in relationship strengthening to help to prevent that would be money well spent. According to a survey carried out by the Department for Education, every pound invested in strengthening family relationships would save the Treasury £11.50. I believe that spending on creating healthy relationships for the next generation is as valid as promoting that generation’s physical health and wellbeing. Few Members can disagree with the principle that such early intervention is key if a child’s life chances are to be maximised, or with the principle that maximum support should be given to children in the areas of greatest need.

Let me end by making a few practical suggestions. The Chancellor would do well to think again about the transferable tax allowance for married couples. He should consider refocusing it on the families with the youngest children. That would be an exponential investment, as the highest rate of family breakdown occurs in families with children under three. By focusing the scheme on couples with low incomes and children under five, and doubling the amount receivable to about £9 a week, the Treasury could offer more substantial support for some of the country’s lowest earners and neediest families, and could do so at no extra cost, because there is an underspend in the money already allocated for the purpose in a previous Budget. A further nuance would be to target for greater take-up those living in the 100 housing estates that the Prime Minister identified for regeneration, and those living in the 100 local government wards with the highest levels of family breakdown.

Perhaps the Chancellor could also consider using any remaining underspend to strengthen parenting and relationship support. A practical suggestion from the Centre for Social Justice is the provision of an online one-stop shop to give families information about local relationship support.

Strengthening families by supporting healthy relationships should be an aspiration for the Government. Reversing family breakdown and building strong and stable family life as a foundation block of a healthy society must be our ambition. That would really put the next generation first, and it also makes sound economic sense. If we want our productivity to flourish, families must do so as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

We have introduced into the new primary curriculum a requirement that by the end of year 4 all children will know their multiplication tables to 12 times 12. We will introduce a multiplication check next year to ensure that every child knows their multiplication tables by heart. That is a wonderful achievement. If we can ensure that every child leaves primary school knowing their multiplication tables by heart, it will transform mathematics teaching in this country at secondary school and beyond.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

15. If she will make an assessment of the contribution of faith schools to society.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

Church and faith schools have made a significant contribution in helping to shape our education system over many years. They are among our best performing schools in the country and parents of all faiths and of none value them for the quality of their education and their strong ethos. We continue to work closely with faith organisations to ensure that the religious character of their schools is maintained and developed.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

All that is undeniable: faith schools are extraordinarily popular, so why do the Government insist on the cap of 50% on people of a faith attending a new free school? We all know that the Government’s hidden agenda is that they do not want 100% Muslim schools, but the fact is that few Muslim schools are oversubscribed anyway, so all this is doing is preventing the Catholic and Anglican new free schools from coming on stream. Why not abolish the cap and let freedom prevail?

[Mr Gibb]

The 50% limit on faith admissions to free schools ensures that the new high-quality school places that they provide are available to local children, not just those of a particular faith, and it helps to ensure that those pupils receive an inclusive and broad-based education. We are always happy to hear representations on how best to achieve those goals and I would certainly welcome applications to establish, for example, more Catholic free schools, but I understand why the Catholic Church in particular is reluctant to do so.

Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

I agree, but that is where the problem lies. I sympathise with the Minister. Having been a Minister myself, I accept that civil servants sometimes look at things through a London—not even a south-east—prism and think that if something is not happening in London or the south-east, it cannot be happening elsewhere. The idea that my hon. Friend has an outstanding college in Northumberland is perhaps something that they cannot comprehend. Any changes need to be right. One size will not fit all. We have a dynamic group of colleges. The issue is not about competition. That would be a retrograde step back to the bad old days when people were literally competing. That is not a good use of resources and not good for the learners themselves.

Another aspect that is important for the further education sector is to raise aspirations. If we are going to get people into engineering or hospitality and tourism, one thing that the north-east needs more than anything—the further education sector has a key part to play—is to raise aspirations. Sadly, in my own constituency, and in other constituencies as well, we have the problem of—it is a horrible word—NEET: not in education, employment or training. It is difficult to find out the numbers. There are individuals now who are not included in any statistics anywhere. They are not in the education statistics; they are not claiming benefits; and they do menial, part-time, casual work. That is okay while they are young, but they are missing out on the opportunities to get the qualifications that they need for the future, and in many cases they put themselves at great risk working on building sites or in conditions with no health and safety provision or any care for those individuals. Those are the people we need to reach. Sometimes, when the school system has failed them, the further education sector is a good way to access them.

I want to address two other points and how other Departments’ policies impact on the further education sector. Just outside my constituency, in the City of Durham constituency, is Finchale Training College. It was set up in 1943 for the rehabilitation and retraining of ex-servicemen. It does fantastic work with veterans who have mental health problems and physical disabilities. It has a long tradition of retraining them and getting them ready for work. It has also done other training work in the wider further education sector. It was a residential college until 2015 when the Government changed the rules in a move away from residential colleges, and we can argue the pros and cons of that.

In September 2015, the Department for Work and Pensions introduced the specialist employment service to help individuals who need extra help because of disabilities or other training needs. They would have gone into the residential system, but are now—I think positively—in the community. The system set up to deal with this is not only bureaucratic, but it has a detrimental effect on colleges such as Finchale. Contracts were issued nationally and large organisations such as the Shaw Trust, Remploy and others got the contracts. They have sub-partners and Finchale is a sub-partner for the Shaw Trust. The pathway for the people who need extra help into the system is via the disability employment advisers in local jobcentres. There are only two full-time disability employment advisers in the entire north-east; the rest are part time, and there is a problem. Access is gained through a computer-based system. On the first working day of each month, a number of places and contracts are put out. The employment advisers then have to match people to those.

In theory, there is a regional cap, so there should be 18 for the region, but that does not work in practice. So Finchale, which would have expected 70 students over the last period, has only got two, because as soon as a jobcentre in Croydon or south Wales logs on and gets in early, it can upload all its applicants to fill the places. So the idea that Finchale will access learners from south Wales or Croydon is not the case. There are an estimated 200 people in the north-east who need help.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is giving an excellent speech, but he has gone on now for 15 minutes. Several people want to speak, and I want to get everybody in, so can he now bring his remarks to a close?

[Mr Jones]

Will the Minister ask his Department for Work and Pensions colleagues to change the system? The system needs to have a regional cap and to allow for people at least to access it, because at the moment it is having a detrimental effect on colleges such as Finchale.

Finally, I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on regional devolution. We are told that post-16 further education will be devolved to the new regional body, whatever that will be. Will he guarantee that, if that happens, any cash will be ring-fenced or immune from cuts? When the public health budgets were devolved to local government, the first thing to happen was that they were top-sliced. One of my fears, I think rightly, is that the devolution agenda being pushed by the Government is more about devolving responsibility—without the cash to go with it—and then the blame when the new local authorities have to make the cuts. I am interested to know the Minister’s thinking.

We have world-leading colleges and further education institutions in the north-east. The Minister needs to work with them and not to try and implant in the north-east some blueprint that might look nice on his civil servants’ spreadsheets. If something is not broken, why try and fix it?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

We have a number of people wishing to speak. Please keep your speeches down to less than six minutes.

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[Mr Wright]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but I would go further, because I worry about the area-based review in the Tees valley. May I ask the Minister why the review includes FE and sixth-form colleges, but not school sixth forms, 16-to-19 free schools or university technical colleges? If a comprehensive review of post-16 provision in an area is being undertaken, why include only certain providers? The 10 FE colleges in the Tees valley subject to the review account for only about 60% of provision, so how can a proper evaluation take place? The process seems opaque, and no one has been able to demonstrate to me clear and transparent criteria for how the area-based review is being conducted. Will he use this opportunity to do so this afternoon?

Furthermore, given that colleges are autonomous organisations, it is difficult to see how any conclusions of the review can be implemented unless the Government starve colleges of funding until they agree to the conclusions. Will the Minister respond to that point and confirm that colleges in the north-east that refuse to accept the findings will not experience disproportionately harsh cuts to their funding?

The Government’s key objective in skills policy is the target of 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. The apprenticeship levy has been proposed as a means to ensure that firms pay for training. I appreciate that core funding for 16 to 19-year-olds and adult skills will be maintained in cash, if not real, terms as a result of the spending review. However, the Minister knows that there remains acute pressure on college budgets. The Skills Funding Agency has suggested that about 70 colleges throughout the country could be deemed financially inadequate by the end of 2015-16.

A devastating impact on FE colleges in the north-east is possible. Will the Minister reassure the House, without referring to specific institutions—doing so might undermine confidence—that colleges in the region will have suitable resources? Will he explain how he anticipates that the combination of his main priority, apprenticeship expansion, with other FE college activities will complement one another, rather than the former being seen as a substitute or alternative for the latter?

I mentioned that FE colleges in the north-east are drivers of social mobility. For people in the north-east in their 20, 30s or 40s who have been made redundant—sorrowfully, we have had far too much of that in the north-east recently—or who may not have worked hard at school but now want to put their lives back on track, and yet are not in a position to take on an apprenticeship place, how does the Minister anticipate that FE colleges will be able to provide them with the necessary basic skills to make something of their lives?

I turn to the apprenticeship levy and, in particular, something that the Minister said when giving evidence to the Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy yesterday. About 2% of firms in England will be liable for the levy, and the Tees valley figure is broadly comparable to the national proportion—2.2% of our employers are large firms. In Committee I asked the Minister whether the Government position was that the levy will be a ring-fenced fund to be drawn on only by levy payers to fund apprentice training. The Minister said that large firms would have “first dibs” on the money raised from the levy.

That response prompts a number of questions. If that is the case, how will the 98% of smaller firms receive funding for apprenticeship training through the levy if they are waiting for scraps from the table? Will firms be able to carry the levy forward to subsequent financial years, so that if a large firm does not want to draw on it in year one, it will have that possibility in year two? Again, how will that help smaller firms? How will the system help FE colleges provide suitable financial planning? Will the “first dibs” approach be allocated on a national, regional or sub-regional basis—will it be large firms only in the Tees valley, or only in Hartlepool? How will the levy work?

As the Minister understands, the considerable uncertainty is undermining the ability of colleges in the north-east to plan and to provide their existing excellent further education provision. I hope that further detail will be provided this afternoon, so that colleges can get on with the job of ensuring that we can transform our regional economy and that people’s lives in the north-east are made better.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Congratulations—on the nail at six minutes. I call Anne-Marie Trevelyan.

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[Nick Boles]

No, I am not going to give way. I am going to move on—[Interruption.]

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister has intimated that he is not giving way, and I am afraid we have to listen to him quietly. It may be difficult, but Members must calm down.

[Nick Boles]

Hon. Members have asked a great many questions, and I want to try to answer as many as I can.

First, as well as seeming to think that my own educational background was a subject of interest for the debate, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland suggested that I have no understanding of rural areas and the issues they face. I point out to her and the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) that the constituency of South Holland and The Deepings neighbours—indeed, borders—my own. Your constituency, Sir Edward, also does. I, too, have a very rural constituency. I, too, have a constituency in which there are three towns that are more than 20 miles apart, so I entirely understand the issues. I am afraid that in Lincolnshire, fine and wonderful county though it is, we probably do not have much better public transport between towns than in the north-east, so to suggest that I have somehow brought an urban or south-east view to area reviews is ludicrous.

Secondly, the whole point about area reviews is that they are locally based. They are run locally, with local colleges taking these decisions. We of course accept that for the lower level of training in particular—level 1, 2 and 3 training—it is simply impossible to expect people to travel significant distances if we want them to continue in education. We do want them to continue in education, so we will absolutely not be looking to do that.

Opposition Members might want to ask themselves why the great and much admired Newcastle College is able to do so well. One reason is that it is big. In a single year, it secures £38 million of grant funding from the Skills Funding Agency alone, whereas many other colleges in the north-east receive £2 million, £3 million, £4 million or £5 million. “Merger” does not necessarily mean the closure of sites. In fact, what makes the closure of a site much more likely is a small, financially challenged institution that simply cannot cope with the overhead costs of running a college for very low volumes of training—

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[Nick Boles]

I will not give way. I am answering all Opposition Members’ questions—[Interruption.]

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Nick Boles]

I will now move on to funding. With many of the Opposition Members here today having participated in that Opposition day debate in which they frightened their constituents and mine with the prospect of a 25% to 40% cut, I hoped that I might hear one word of welcome for the fact that the Chancellor was able to guarantee that the adult and community learning budget will be protected in flat cash terms throughout the spending review period—that is, until 2019-20—and that the 16-to-19 funding rate will also remain flat at £4,000 until 2019-20. Opposition Members predicted a 25% to 40% cut. We, through managing the economy responsibly, have secured funding stability, which I know their colleges welcome.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), as always, asked some important and serious follow-up questions, with the slight advantage of having quizzed me yesterday for an hour and a half. I will try to answer them, though they are not directly on the theme of area reviews. The change in the nature of apprenticeship funding is, of course, a critical element in looking at the future of any college’s finances. I hope that he will welcome, endorse and help to go out and spread this message. Currently, across the country, colleges secure only 30% of all the funding for apprenticeship training. The rest—two thirds—goes to private training providers. We all believe that private training providers have an important role to play, and none of us wants to fix the market for colleges, but I hope that he and other hon. Members will join me in urging colleges to set themselves the ambition of winning two thirds of that funding.

Colleges are incredibly well placed to provide training for apprenticeships, as many colleges in the north-east already do. It will be a significantly expanding budget. The apprenticeship levy, about which the hon. Gentleman has some understandable concerns, will increase apprenticeship funding in England to £2.6 billion by the end of this Parliament. Between 2010 and 2020, apprenticeship funding in this country will have doubled. What other education budget will have doubled in that period? That is a dramatic shift. Colleges are fantastically well placed to take advantage of that funding, and I hope that we can work together to ensure that more of them secure it.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland asked an important question about the interaction between the new apprenticeship levy and the Construction Industry Training Board levy. She is right to say that the CITB has the support of the industry, but she is perhaps a little over-generous to say that the scheme is not broke. The reality is that our construction industry yet again has gone straight from feast to famine and suddenly finds that it does not have the skills it needs, so something is not quite working in the provision of skilled labour. I am sure that that is as true in her constituency as it is elsewhere in the country.

We have made very clear to the industry and, indeed, to the CITB that it will be for the industry to decide how it wants to combine the two levies. It may well be possible to devise a solution whereby one levy is effectively netted off against the other, so that no individual levy payer pays twice but we continue to provide support. The CITB levy, as the hon. Lady will be well aware, will cover more employers than the apprenticeship levy. She has my commitment that we will work with the industry to ensure the two levies work well alongside each other.

A question was asked about the devolution settlements and whether the funding that might be devolved will be ring-fenced. Hon. Members will be aware that we have already devolved capital funding to local enterprise partnerships in relation to skills. That funding is not ring-fenced; it goes into the single capital pot that the partnerships have. I hope that Members will be reassured to know that even as adult skills funding starts to be devolved to areas that have secured devolution deals, local authorities in those areas will still be subject to the same statutory requirements to provide certain skills for free to certain members of the population. Local authorities might not have a ring-fenced budget, but they absolutely will have a statutory duty to meet that provision, as they do in relation to social services and all sorts of other services. I am sure that hon. Members will know from their own experience that local authorities take such statutory duties very seriously indeed.

The hon. Member for Darlington raised an interesting point and was the only person really to get into what she called the jungle of qualifications. I agree with her; it is often a baffling sea to any 16-year-old who comes in, seeking a set of courses to take them to a career. I hope that she will welcome and contribute to the review being conducted by a former Labour Minister, Lord Sainsbury. He is looking into constructing slightly clearer and more directive routes for technical and professional education, so that from the age of 16, young people are given a clear sense of what will actually take them into a job.

Finally, I come back to area reviews, which are the real subject of the debate. It is very important to understand and underline that colleges are independent institutions. We simply do not have the power, nor do we want to have the power, to tell them to merge, close or do any such thing. That is why—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

On a point of order, Sir Edward. You will observe that we have a considerable amount of time for the Minister to answer interventions, but he has refused to take any. Is it in order for him to do so, or is it just simply impolite not to?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

It is certainly in order for him to decide whether to take interventions. Whether it is polite or impolite is for others to judge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Sir Edward. I have never seen a Minister fail to accept any interventions. When time is not on a Minister’s side, it is fair not to, but we have eight minutes left and he has refused to have any Opposition Members challenge him on anything he has said, which is absolutely outrageous.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Well, that is not a point of order, but there we are.

[Nick Boles]

I hoped that Opposition Members would understand that, when I said that I wanted to conclude my argument, that was slightly different from saying that I wanted to conclude my speech. I will be happy to take some interventions when I have concluded the argument that area reviews are not going to be centrally imposed solutions. They are locally generated solutions that will provide a prospect for every college—about which Opposition Members have spoken in such glowing terms—to do an even better job in the future of providing vital technical skills to their young people.

I will start, if I may, by taking an intervention from the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, given that she secured the debate, and I am happy to use the rest of the time to take further interventions.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I was going to call the hon. Lady to wind up at the end if she wants to, so does she want to let others come in first?

[Helen Goodman]

Okay, I will wind up afterwards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

What the Minister is highlighting is that it seems as though he has made up his mind what he wants: he thinks big is beautiful. He rightly argues, as I said in my contribution, that Newcastle College is a good, forward-looking institution, but he clearly wants large colleges with satellites. That is not what local colleges in the region want; they want to co-operate with one another, so I am sorry, but he is being disingenuous if he is suggesting that he has somehow not made his mind up even before he started this review.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the Minister give Helen Goodman a couple of minutes to wind up, please?

[Nick Boles]

Of course I will. I just want to give any other hon. Member the opportunity to intervene, Sir Edward. They seem to be very keen to intervene—but perhaps less keen now.

Childcare Bill [Lords]

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The trouble is it depends on the Bills. Standing Orders dictate when the procedure is used. We could go a long time without it being used or it could be used every day. I am not sure. The procedures are laid down in Standing Orders, but the hon. Lady has now put her point on the record.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Sir Edward, are you sure it is a point of order? Last time you promised me it was, but it was not.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am sometimes a bit naughty.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I would not say sometimes.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Lady should not get too worried, because EVEL will not change a single part of a single Bill in this or any other Parliament. There is an overall Conservative majority in this one, and, as all the other parties are opposed to it, if we do not have a majority next time, they will cancel it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Thank you, Sir Edward, for that non-point of order. I was absolutely correct: you are naughty.

Out-of-school Education Settings

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the proposed regulation of out-of-school education settings.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, and to welcome such an excellent Minister, dedicated to school standards, and an even more excellent Opposition spokesman—I say that in the hope that they might be nice when they sum up.

How have we come to a situation in which a Conservative Government are proposing that a parish church must register with Ofsted before it can teach children the Bible for more than a few hours? The Department for Education’s consultation—I emphasise that it is a consultation—on its plans for out-of-school settings is well intentioned enough. Nobody denies that. When Sir Michael Wilshaw goes on the radio to defend them, he tells us about children

“at risk of abuse and at risk of radicalisation.”

We all have those concerns, but why does tackling abuse and radicalisation in a very tiny number of madrassahs mean that every voluntary group in England that instructs children for six or more hours a week has to register with the state? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education told Radio 4 that she thought the number of problem institutions could be numbered in the tens. Why, then, are we requiring tens of thousands of totally innocent groups to register with the state?

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend remember that when we were in opposition, we opposed the then Labour Government’s ContactPoint database precisely because it sought to capture information on every child in the country? We said, “No, it should be proportionate. We should capture the information on children at risk, not every child.” Why does he think that that principle is not being applied in this case?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend makes his point very well, and I agree entirely that the Government should capture information only on the very small number of children who are at risk.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Ladies first.

[Mrs Gillan]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate. This issue has caused great concern among my constituents, particularly Rev. Simon Cansdale, who leads our churches in Chesham. He makes the point that surely we should be the Government who are responsible for wiping away red tape and disincentives for voluntary organisations to carry out this sort of work, but we appear to be putting more red tape in the way and creating more disincentives for them. As far as I am concerned, the proposals could even apply to, for example, teaching children music for recitals or outdoor skills, or to any sort of activity such as singing songs or reading out stories to young children. Surely it is verging on the ridiculous and should be swept away.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

rose—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Before Sir Edward continues—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Yes, your intervention was too long, as you say.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It may have been too long, but it was very good, Mr Turner. Of course it is ridiculous. It is an attack on the big society. These voluntary groups are precisely what the Prime Minister was trying to create. There is no point regulating them.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Just seven months ago he proudly stood on a Conservative manifesto, which, on page 61, stated that the Conservative party would

“reject any suggestions of sweeping, authoritarian measures that would threaten our hard-won freedoms.”

Does he believe that the proposals fit in with that promise?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Exactly. How proudly I stood on that manifesto. [Laughter.]

Returning to my speech, if the number of problem institutions could be numbered in the tens, why should all these voluntary groups be subject to inspection by Ofsted? Why does that mean that churches could have inspectors deciding whether their doctrine meets the “British values” test? Why should totally moderate, mainstream mosques and madrassahs have to register on a list of potential extremists?

The DFE says that an out-of-school education setting is

“any institution providing tuition, training or instruction to children aged under 19 in England”.

Exceptions are schools, colleges, and registered childcare providers. The Government talk about “intensive education”. That sounds bad—like it has a controlling influence on children—but the document says it is

“anything which entails an individual child attending a setting for more than between 6 to 8 hours a week”.

It says that that could be an hour or so every day after school.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I speak as somebody who even this coming weekend will be engaged in working with young people in a Sunday school. Does my hon. Friend think that, even if we normally do one or two hours a week, the proposals will apply if we take the children away for a weekend, which will be far more than six hours?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a very good question and is precisely what the Minister needs to respond to, because the proposals could apply and we want to know the answer.

Huge numbers of groups have the kind of contact with young people that we are discussing. They will all have to register as part of a scheme designed for spotting a few Islamic extremists. It sounds a bit excessive, doesn’t it? The DFE is clear that it has in mind

“activities and education for children in many subjects including arts, language, music, sport and religion”.

This scheme for spotting jihadists is therefore going to impose state regulation on groups teaching arts, music and sport, activities in which jihadists are not particularly known to engage. Stalin used to persecute innocent groups of philatelists or Esperanto learners; is this a very British kind of Stalinism? Members will be thinking of the many scout troops, sports teams, youth groups, churches, conservation groups and after-school clubs in their constituencies. They will all have to register, even though we can say with a high degree of certainty that none of them—none of them—are poisoning young minds with extremism.

The Scout Association has contacted me to say that the

“proposed threshold is neither helpful, nor workable”

and that “sufficient scrutiny already exists”. Of course, that is right. One does feel sorry for the association. It is hard enough nowadays to get volunteers to give up their free time to run scout groups, without more over-regulation.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Like, I am sure, many others present, I have had to go through the process of a Criminal Records Bureau check, which is now a Disclosure and Barring Service check. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an important but onerous process? Sometimes, one has to be checked more than once, because it does not transfer to another activity that one might undertake with children if one is foolish enough to do a full weekend with the Sunday school. It is a very rigorous process, and if it was applied to the people who teach children Islam in all teaching environments, it would be a very good tool to deal with any excess problem that there might be.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. We should be using DBS checks if, for instance, people are trying to teach extremism, jihadism or whatever in an out-of-school setting or at home. We should use intelligence and existing powers to deal with the problem, not try to take a great sledgehammer to crack a nut.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. My constituents are concerned about the additional burden not only on volunteers, who do incredible work up and down the country, but on Ofsted. They are concerned about whether Ofsted has the capacity and the resources to implement the proposals, and about what the costs might be.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I believe that Ofsted has neither the capacity nor the resources. It should concentrate on its job of ensuring good educational standards.

The DFE consultation document also mentions settings that are used during school holidays. Clearly, summer camps were in view. The Department now says that “one off residential activities” will not be covered. Fair enough. The body charged with registration is the local authority, but I am afraid we have seen enough local authorities banning Christmas and pulling funding from church groups to know that there will be places where relationships between local churches and the council are not friendly.

Apparently, out-of-school settings will be

“eligible for investigation, and if appropriate, intervention where concerns were reported”.

Investigation? Intervention? This is pretty intrusive stuff. The Government say that all this has

“the broad aim of keeping children safe generally from the risk of harm, including emotional harm”.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I speak as somebody who, like other Members, has run residential courses like those that have been mentioned. Does he agree that we might end up with all the good, diligent organisations registering, while the ones we are trying to crack down on will not bother registering at all?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is precisely the point, and I will come to it in a moment. Extremists will not register and will not talk about cutting off people’s heads when the Ofsted inspector is around.

Emotional harm is a vague concept. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins say it is “mental abuse” to teach children that the Bible is true. Does the Department agree? I am sure not. Do some Ofsted inspectors agree? I hope not.

The system includes a requirement to “register”, a power for Ofsted to inspect and a power to impose sanctions, including barring people from working with children and closing premises. Although the consultation process was, I believe, inadequate, the Department received thousands of responses, because people, especially Christian groups, are really worried. They are terrified because, for the first time, Ofsted will decide whether to bar someone or close down their youth work by assessing whether their teaching is

“compatible with, and does not undermine, fundamental British values.”

The Department says that prohibited activities will include:

“Undesirable teaching, for example teaching which undermines or is incompatible with fundamental British values.”

Does the Department really have a right to decide what is desirable and undesirable teaching in churches? Many groups focus on hobbies, sports, music, the outdoors —things that have no relevance whatever to British values. The truth is that those thousands of hobby groups are being forced to register only so the system looks even-handed. That is the point: the Government are terrified of not looking even-handed, and therefore they are bringing in all those other harmless groups.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on making a characteristically forthright speech that is based on common sense. Does he agree that the state has tools to address such issues in a risk-based way? We do it all the time with immigration and policing. Clearly, if there are risks, we should have a risk-based, proportionate approach based on common sense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That sums it up very well. All the tools are there, and I will list them in a moment. They are based on risk.

The DFE’s real target, as we all know, is religious teaching; let us be honest about that. The major problem is that many religious groups do not have confidence in Ofsted. I led a debate last year on the treatment of certain Church and Jewish schools. I will not repeat all I said on that occasion. I mentioned the particular problems that Orthodox Jewish schools are having; I read out letters from pupils at a Christian school; I mentioned St Benedict’s Catholic School in leafy Bury St Edmunds, which was accused of not doing enough to tackle radicalisation; I mentioned Middle Rasen School in my constituency, which, according to Ofsted, is not British enough. I will not repeat those points, but they are on the record.

The Catholic Education Service does not oppose the plans, but it has a number of concerns, including the risk of

“Vexatious complaints and the use of the system as a means of pursuing critical objectives”.

Ofsted told Trinity Christian School in Reading to invite leaders of other faiths to lead collective worship and actively to promote other faiths. Ofsted denies it, but why would the school make it up? I am afraid that Ofsted has a reputation for being unfair to some Christian and Jewish schools. When inspectors went into the Birmingham non-faith schools that were part of the Trojan horse Islamist plot, they first rated them as “outstanding”. One of the key figures in the scandal was an Ofsted inspector, so it hardly has a stellar record of spotting extremism. Yesterday, I talked to Sir Michael Wilshaw, who is a very reasonable, able man and is clearly doing his best. I have no doubt that he has worked hard in the past year with his resources to root out radical jihadism, but because he has to look even-handed, he has to take part in this activity of controlling thousands of other group.

Are British values the answer? One only has to say the phrase now and people roll their eyes. The consultation paper says that British values include

“democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

That is too vague to provide a basis for state inspection of churches and scout groups. It is also sloppy. We cannot show respect and tolerance for all beliefs. Jihadism is a belief, and we certainly do not respect that.

The Government admit that their out-of-school plans will create a new burden on providers—the understatement of the year—but I do not think they have any idea of how big the bureaucratic monster they are creating is. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations—hardly an extremist group—says that there are more than 160,000 voluntary organisations in the UK. Many of them work with children and young people. For 37,000 of them, it is their core work. The NCVO counts only registered charities, but a vast amount of voluntary work is done without the formality of setting up a charity, so there are many thousands more groups not included in the NCVO figures.

I have several questions that I hope the Minister will reply to. How will those tens of thousands of bodies be notified of the new obligation to register, given that some of them do not even have a permanent address? Whose responsibly will it be in the setting, especially if the group is informal and has no structure? What about venues with different groups operating on the same premises? How will ad hoc groups calculate whether they breach the six-hour threshold? How many will be forced to register just in case? How will they know what Ofsted is looking for if they ever get a visit? How will they prepare for a visit? Can football be played in a non-British values compliant way? Can a conservation club be intolerant? Should martial arts clubs be worried?

The whole thing is a ridiculous mess that will severely damage the big society—our big idea. Some groups will cut their provision to less than six hours to avoid having to register, and some will close down altogether. Groups that rely on teachers as volunteers will be especially vulnerable because teachers will not want to risk their career by being involved in an amateur outfit that might slip up with Ofsted. It is the children who will suffer, not us, Ofsted or the Government. There will be less provision, which means that in future there will be fewer footballers, swimmers, linguists, artists and other high-flyers, all because of this bizarre, unfocused, ill-thought-out, politically correct imposition on our freedom.

[Mrs Gillan]

I am also greatly worried about the cost and burden that the scheme will place on our already squeezed local authorities and on the Government. More taxpayers’ money will be spent on the scheme, and I think it would be unreasonable to expect local government to meet the cost.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

From talking to our local councillors, we know that the last thing we should do is impose more burdens on them.

To top it all, the scheme will not make children any safer from extremism; it will just tie up thousands of non-jihadi groups in red tape. The idea that jihadists will take the time to register is incredibly naive. Islamist extremists regard our laws as a total irrelevance. If they have no conscience about teaching children that Jews and Christians are worse than dogs, does anyone seriously think they will have a conscience about registering with the local authority? Are they really going to put themselves on the radar for an inspection? If they beat up children for not memorising the Koran, do we really think they are going to put their hands up and say, “Here we are—come and inspect us”? If Ofsted turns up to assess them, does anybody think that they would use the occasion to show their ghastly videos?

If we want to find extremists groups that put children at risk, we have to use good old-fashioned intelligence. We spend a huge amount of money on the intelligence services. We have to rely on intelligence, surveillance, common sense and the bravery of members of the public who blow the whistle on such groups, including the many good Muslims who are fed up with this, frankly, and the good Muslim mothers who do not want their children to go to such places.

We should use existing laws, of which there are plenty. If these groups urge children to do things that break the law, we should prosecute them for encouraging the commission of a criminal offence under section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. If the children are at risk of significant harm, we should get a prohibited steps order or a supervision order under the Children Act 1989. If the premises are dangerous, we should invoke health and safety law to close them down. If it is really an unregistered school, we should use the Education and Skills Act 2008 to close it down, as the DFE did last week to a school in Stamford Hill. We have the powers, and we should use them to deal with the genuine cases.

This out-of-school setting scheme is a total and utter distraction. We will end up with a list of tens of thousands of law-abiding, non-extremist groups, and Ofsted inspectors will try to justify their existence by picking on the occasional conservative religious group and brand them non-compliant with British values. It is a typical case of politicians and civil servants wanting to look as if they are doing something, rather than actually doing something. If they actually want to do something, they need to knock together the heads of the police, social services departments, Ofsted and all those with existing powers to make them use those powers properly.

This scheme is fundamentally illiberal. It is big government at its worst. It would do little or no discernible good, and an awful lot of harm, leading to false allegations. Ofsted knows that false allegations against teachers are a massive problem in the profession. A system based on “British values” and “undesirable” teaching is ripe for subjective, exaggerated and politically-motivated complaints, especially against religious groups. This will generate false flags and waste time. Finding extremists is already like finding a needle in a haystack. This system will just make the haystack much bigger.

Sir Michael Wilshaw tried to justify the new plans on LBC Radio last week by citing cases of unregistered schools where children were

“living in appalling conditions in a filthy environment where there was homophobic literature, anti-Semitic literature and misogynistic literature”.

That summarises the difficulty. On the one hand, it identifies real problems such as educating children in filthy conditions, but talks about those problems as if we cannot tackle them without a new law. That is not true. We do not need a new scheme to do that. On the other hand, Sir Michael Wilshaw raises issues that involve highly subjective judgments, such as what constitutes “homophobia” and “misogyny”. People routinely use words such as homophobic and misogynistic to describe the contents of holy books of all religions. One can bet there are Ofsted inspectors who take that approach. I half wonder whether the homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Semitic literature found at unregistered schools was just some religion’s holy book. There is some pretty blood-curdling stuff in the holy books of all religions.

I absolutely accept that no religious person has the right to impose any violent language on anybody else, but we are talking about religious people. It does not matter whether they are Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Christian —they believe their holy book. I am not saying that anyone has the right to enforce their holy book on others, but they do have a right to say that they believe that their religion is right and that others are wrong. That is why they are religious. That is real diversity and pluralism—not this ridiculous situation in which we all have to pretend that we believe the same thing.

The Minister may tell us that the Government have no intention of registering Sunday schools, chiefly because they do not like the sound of the headline, but Sir Michael Wilshaw told the LBC Radio audience last week that Sunday schools would have to register. He is right because Sunday school provision is just one aspect of a church’s work with young people. If a child spends two hours at Sunday school, another two hours at a youth group on Wednesday, and another two hours in choir practice on Friday, they have spent six hours receiving tuition and training from the church. It may have involved three different groups with three different sets of volunteers but it is all in one setting, so that church will have to register. Its Sunday school workers, youth group leaders and choir masters are all liable to British values inspections.

In 1787, it was estimated that a quarter of a million children were enrolled in Sunday schools. They were mainly non-conformist. Frightened by the French revolution, the then Archbishop of Canterbury denounced Sunday schools as “nurseries of fanaticism”. Prime Minister William Pitt almost introduced a Bill prohibiting the dangerous innovation—plus ça change. In conclusion, the Department must think again before it unleashes a whirlwind of destructive over-regulation on the voluntary sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I am struck by the parallel with the registration proposals of the previous Labour Government for home education. The thought was, “There could be a problem. We don’t have enough data. We don’t know what’s going on. There could be issues—children could be being abused in their homes. So we must register every single parent,” even though the long-standing settlement was to respect that parents have the duty to educate their children, not the state. This is creeping statism.

I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) not to add me to the list, but I am someone of no faith and there are lots of people in the Chamber with faith. This proposal seems to me a gross infringement of so many rights, including the rights of Muslims, and in a free society we need to respect families of whatever denomination and recognise where the line should be drawn by the Government, notwithstanding the risks.

If we go back, we think of the reds under the bed. It was not that there was not a clear and present danger from communism; it was the fact that a disproportionate, illiberal and un-American response was inappropriate. We can think back to when the leader of the Catholic Church—Islam has no such leader—was clearly opposed to the society and Government of this country, yet we recognised that Catholics were predominantly law-abiding and needed to be respected.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Only predominantly?

[Graham Stuart]

Nearly exclusively. It is exactly the same issue.

I make one final point. If we go ahead with this, it will have the opposite effect on safety to what is intended. Forget all the other points my colleagues have made about how it will break down volunteering and all the rest of what is good—what about targeting Islamic extremism? If we take an organisation such as Ofsted, whose budget has been falling consistently over time—local authorities are in the same position—and ask it to register everyone, it will spend its entire time trying to do that and it will fail to get to the real problem.

With the Labour proposals on home education, we knew that the people who were really troublesome would never register and would evade the authorities with ease. Everyone else—every law-abiding, committed family—would be put through the hoops and subjected to a state imposition that was clearly and utterly inappropriate. That is what we risk here.

I have changed my mind on this proposal. At first, I thought it could be proportionate and reasonable, but I do not think it can be, so let us not do it. ContactPoint was wrong, and so is this—let us put a stop to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

In conclusion, I thank the perhaps up to 20 people—friends and colleagues from all parties—who have turned up this morning. It is not often that we have a debate such as this in Westminster Hall, and we have heard some very powerful speeches and very powerful points.

I will sum it all up: we have sacrificed too much of our liberty in the name of equality, so I beg the Minister to bear in mind the places that are under the radar, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) mentioned. Bear in mind the cumulative hours. Bear in mind that there is very little extremism—indeed none at all—ever practised in Methodist Sunday schools. This is the point we are making, and we are doing so powerfully and strongly. We are not a party that intends to further state regulation and control; we are a party of liberty, freedom and religious tolerance. I will leave it there.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

School Expansion

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I really do not know where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. The whole point of this is that it is about parental choice. [Interruption.] Families can absolutely choose; there is no compulsion to attend a grammar school. As I have already said, Trinity free school and the Knole academy will be nearby. There will be other schools as well. There is no contradiction. We are very clear: we believe in parental choice and we believe in excellent education for all.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This is an important statement because a legal precedent has been set; it will be very difficult to stop any good school setting up an annexe if it can prove it can carry on the same ethos, and I would welcome that. I want to ask the Secretary of State about the funding point, however, which is much more important than one extra annexe. Because of the equalisation of funding of successful schools with large sixth forms—not just grammar schools—the funding of grammar schools has declined precipitously in relation to other schools. The best performing grammar school in Lincolnshire gets only £3,000 per head per year whereas the worst performing comprehensive, which nobody wants to go to, gets £7,000 per head per year. This is simply not fair. I have asked the Secretary of State in Adjournment debates and in meetings to address this: will she do so?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. He will know our party gave a clear commitment in our manifesto to fairer funding, and he will also know that we are working on it. I cannot comment on anything ahead of the spending review, but we are all aware of the need to look at this and make the funding fairer, which is why we invested £390 million in this financial year and the last financial year to try to get towards a fairer funding system, but there is further work to do.

Education and Adoption Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight such issues, particularly the important role played by the city council. Manchester is at the vanguard of the right hon. Lady’s Government’s programme for devolution. Indeed, some might argue that the leaders of Greater Manchester are closer in outlook to the Chancellor than she is. Why is she not part of that agenda? Instead she is taking education in the opposite direction.

Secondly, had the Secretary of State looked further into the history of the Manchester Enterprise academy, she would have found out what any local representative, such as my hon. Friend, or education professional in the city could have told her—that it took many years after academisation for the school to be turned around. There were leadership changes, financial problems and low attainment for many years after it became an academy. It was not academisation in and of itself that improved the school, but a range of interventions, many of which have been more recent than its academisation.

Thirdly, as the Secretary of State cited this example on Second Reading, I wonder whether she is aware of the school’s results this year. Through no fault of its own—indeed, the school continues to go from strength to strength—its GCSE results this year dropped by 9%. As she may be aware, as in many deprived and challenging parts of the country, the new system of comparative results means that no matter how hard the school works and how excellent the teaching is, results can fall as grade boundaries change, making the gap impossible to close. That comparative results system, with its constantly changing grade boundaries, may result in excellent schools, such as the Manchester Enterprise academy, being labelled as coasting. Has she considered the consequences of that? She will also be aware that schools face a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, particularly in maths and science. That, too, could affect a school’s results through no fault of its own.

The Secretary of State’s example highlights my bigger point. Despite having a whole Department working on her speech and sourcing examples, no one brought the real situation of the academy to her attention. Local representatives could have told her about it. That only highlights the difficult job that she has in being solely responsible for thousands of schools. This Bill and the Secretary of State miss the most fundamental point: we need to devolve oversight for all schools to a level where support, collaboration and accountability can happen effectively. The Bill rejects that and her regional schools commissioners fall well short.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There are 2,024 maintained Catholic schools in England and 386 Catholic academies. As the hon. Lady is speaking on behalf of the new Labour Front-Bench team, may I ask her to pay tribute to our faith schools and assure us that the Labour party is fully committed to their continued existence? In the context of the Bill, will she commit her party to ensuring that if, sadly, an interim executive board has to be appointed, the religious nature of such a school will be preserved?

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I reiterate the Labour party’s commitment to faith schools. As he raises the input of Catholic schools, he may be interested to hear that they are opposed to many aspects of the Bill, as we highlighted in Committee. In particular, they are very much opposed to clause 7.

I will spend the coming months listening, responding and developing and setting a course for an ambitious vision for education in this country—something that the Bill fails in. The Bill takes school oversight and parental involvement backwards, and further demonises local authority schools. That is why we will oppose it. It is also a huge missed opportunity for a newly returned majority Government. The Secretary of State has the best and most important job in this country. Is this Bill the best she can do? If I had any doubt as to why the Bill is before us this evening, I do not after reading her interview in The Daily Telegraph this morning. It is clear that the Secretary of State’s primary interest is not raising standards and supporting pupils, parents and teachers; it is narrow political tactics aimed at the Labour party. I am afraid that that is quite a sad and pathetic development.

Education Regulations and Faith Schools

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that Ofsted should respect the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing the time of these debates, and a number of colleagues, including the hon. Members for Southport (John Pugh) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), would have liked to have taken part in this important debate, but they have unmissable commitments in their constituencies. I am grateful to those of my colleagues who are here to support me.

Faith schools do a marvellous job. That is why parents love them, and I am one of those parents. Of course, when we say faith schools, we are overwhelmingly talking about Church schools. In the state sector there are almost 7,000 faith schools, of which 4,500 are Church of England, almost 2,000 are Catholic, 48 are Jewish, 18 Muslim, eight Sikh and four Hindu. Last year, of the 693 best performing state primary schools, 62% were faith schools—a staggering percentage—even though they account for only a third of primaries nationally.

Church schools are great motors of social mobility. They perform well whatever the background of the pupils. Faith schools are ethnically diverse. About a quarter of pupils of faith schools have an ethnic background other than white British. In my son’s school it is over 60%. Far from preaching intolerance, these schools, because of their strong, unifying, religious ethos, do more for social cohesion than a thousand Home Office initiatives.

Many people’s experience of the Church of England or Roman Catholic school at the end of their road is that it is a delightful haven of well-behaved pupils from all backgrounds and highly motivated teachers putting their heart and soul into the school and its community. But it is faith schools that are under attack from the forces of intolerance, so we must recognise their great contribution and encourage them to carry on doing what they are doing so well.

Groups such as the British Humanist Association would like to ban faith schools. They do no seem to care how much parents and pupils love them or how well they perform—the very definition of intolerance. They try to smear faith schools with what happened in Birmingham with the Trojan horse scandal, but we all know that none of the Trojan horse schools was a faith school. Faith schools should hold their heads up high and not engage in the pre-emptive cringe and kowtow to the latest fashion. They should stand by the principles that have made them such a success: love of God and neighbour, pursuit of truth, high aspiration and discipline.

We do not want any dumbing down. Jewish schools should teach the Jewish religion, and Christian schools should teach the Christian religion. That is likely to give their pupils a better idea of their place in the world, of their potential and of their obligations to others. Yes, they should learn about other religions, which is necessary not only for being a good citizen, but for being culturally aware, but that can take place in the context of the school’s faith ethos. Of course pupils can accept or reject the school’s world view, whether religious or secular. There are plenty of Christians in secular schools and plenty of atheists in Christian schools. The law guarantees freedom of conscience. But by the same token, governors, teachers, parents and pupils who want a religious education also have freedom of conscience, and we must guard their freedoms carefully.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that what is important is the teaching of religious education in all schools so that all children can understand religions and non-religions as they progress through school? We should have proper RE teachers to give young people the wide breadth of knowledge they need to understand everyone else in the country and all those who live in their communities.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, of course I agree. It is very important that RE is a rigid academic discipline. Children must be aware of other faiths and of comparative religion, but they must also have a firm grounding in their own faith’s teachings, because that gives them a sense of belonging and place.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly talks about the need for a firm grounding. Is not the line that must be drawn that no taxpayer-funded school should ever be involved in proselytising or indoctrination?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I absolutely agree. I mentioned the thousands of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. I do not think that there is any evidence that any of those schools are creating Christian jihadists. I have six children, and they have attended faith schools in the state and private sectors. The thought that any of those primary schools in the maintained sector, whether Catholic or Anglican, is teaching intolerance is completely absurd.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) mentioned the importance of understanding other faiths. Is that not the critical factor? We should all understand other faiths and schools should teach an understanding of other faiths, but that is very different from promoting other faiths in a faith school.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. The cornerstone—may I dare use that word?—of faith schools is that they start from their own religion, and what do all of the great world religions teach? They teach understanding, tolerance and love of God and neighbour, so nobody should be teaching intolerance.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

In Windsor we have some really excellent faith schools as well as secular schools—a good mix. I have observed that the pupils who go through the faith schools are equally open minded and tolerant as those in the secular schools.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The evidence for that is absolutely overwhelming.

I now want to turn to Ofsted and the terms of this motion. It may be that the time has come for Ofsted to put itself in special measures, in certain respects. It appears to be guilty of trying to enforce a kind of state-imposed orthodoxy on certain moral and religious questions. This has provoked huge controversy and has rarely been out of the news. We have to ask whether we can any longer have confidence in Ofsted’s reports. Ofsted’s own director of schools, Sean Harford, has admitted that the reliability of inspections is a problem. Sadly, Ministers deflect every question by saying, “It’s a matter for Ofsted.” Perhaps Ofsted is out of control because it is not being held accountable by the Department. That is why we are having this debate.

In September, the National Association of Jewish Orthodox Schools wrote to the Secretary of State complaining that Ofsted inspectors asked hugely inappropriate questions and bullied their pupils into answering insensitive and anti-religious questions.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Jonathan Rabson, who is chairman of NAJOS in my constituency, has said:

“Jewish schools now have the sense that our Jewish values and ethos are being questioned. We have experienced a campaign to discredit Jewish schools and to challenge the values we espouse…We ask you to take this matter extremely seriously.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that Jewish people feel under attack as a result of Ofsted?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. It is no secret that I admire enormously the Jewish religion and the ethos that it creates. What a pity that one of the school’s year 11 girls said that the questioning made them feel “threatened and bullied” about their own religion. Another young girl said that she felt “traumatised” after they had been asked whether they had a boyfriend, knew how babies were made, and knew whether two men could marry. Rabbi David Meyer, the incoming director of the educational oversight body, Partnerships for Jewish Schools, has said:

“We are seeing a worrying trend of Ofsted inspectors showing a lack of respect of the values and traditions of our community.”

I fully support the right of Jewish schools to promote their own ethos and religion.

Let us turn to some other schools. In 2013, St Benedict’s Catholic school in Bury St Edmunds tied for first place in national state school tables for the proportion of pupils going to Oxbridge. What a marvellous school! In September 2014, it was subject to a no-notice inspection. No-notice inspections were part of the response to the Trojan horse scandal. Clearly Ofsted thought that there could be a fundamentalist Catholic conspiracy within St Benedict’s Catholic school. No-notice inspections are quite devastating for the school. Ofsted turns up, rings up, and says, “We’re in the car park. We’re coming in now.” It usually happens because it suspects that something quite serious is going on. The head teacher of St Benedict’s thought that perhaps a no-notice inspection was started because he had not printed a statement on citizenship, although he does not know. The resulting draft report downgraded the school to “requires improvement”. It said that in three of the five inspection areas, the

“younger students show less awareness of the dangers of extremism and radicalisation”.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am surprised that Bury St Edmunds is a place where these things are taught.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am very surprised that Bury St Edmunds, of all places, is possibly a centre of extremism and radicalisation. That is not the town that I know.

The idea that Catholics are being radicalised in state schools is as ridiculous as it is offensive. The local reaction forced Ofsted to remove the offending phrase, but the downgrading remained in place. This suggests that once Ofsted has decided that a school does not support “British values”, it will mark it down in all areas. The unreality of its report was underlined when the exam results for St Benedict’s were finally published. At A-level, the school was placed in the top 100 schools nationally, state and private. Its GCSEs, too, put it among the best performing schools in Suffolk. The Catholic Education Service took the rare step of demanding an apology from Ofsted. Anybody who knows the Catholic Education Service will know that it is not an extremist body, by any manner of means—it is very quiet and restrained. Why have the inspectors who handed this ridiculous report never been brought to account?

Let us look at Trinity Christian school in Reading. It wrote to the Secretary of State in October 2014 after Ofsted had failed the school under “British values”, whatever they are. In November 2013, the school had been rated good in every category, and its spiritual education was deemed excellent. That report said:

“Pupils are well prepared for life in modern, multicultural, democratic British society through the teaching of the Christian principle to ‘love thy neighbour’.”

However, the inspection in October 2014 predominantly focused on the new rules on British values, which had come into force a week earlier. The inspector expressed doubts over the continued existence of the school—I stress, its continued existence—because of its non-compliance with the new rules. She stated that the representatives of other faiths should be invited to lead collective worship, and that the school must “actively promote” other faiths. That is directly antithetical to the school’s Christian ethos. There would be justified outrage if Ofsted demanded that secular or atheist schools actively promoted Christianity, so why should Christian schools “actively promote” what they hold to be untrue? I agree that they should inform children about other religions, but actively promoting them is immoral, impossible and, I believe, a crime against their conscience. We have to wonder how far Christian schools need to go to satisfy the new standards.

On the subject of the Church of England, only two days ago I had a word with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is concerned about this matter. I have also had a word with Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, who is also concerned. This is a mainstream concern in the Catholic and Anglican Churches. By their very nature, such people are not alarmists or extremists, but good and open-minded, but they are deeply worried about what is going on.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend know whether the one report he has so far quoted was from an aberrant Ofsted inspector, or is it because of a direction from Ofsted or from Ministers? Who is responsible?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have not yet finished my speech. I do not want to weary the House, but I have several examples. If this was an aberrant inspection of one school out of thousands, we might say that we should not worry too much about it, but I will quote several examples. There is undoubtedly evidence that such inappropriate questioning has taken place. The schools have complained—I will deal with that in a moment—and there is no adequate evidence that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has gone back to the schools and questioned pupils, parents and teachers about the inappropriate questioning.

This debate is terribly important: if it achieves nothing else, it will ensure that there is no kind of pre-emptive cringe on the part of Christian schools worried that they might be marked down if they do not promote “British values” rather than their own ethos. I hope that there will be a kind of pre-emptive cringe on the part of Ofsted. Given that all my hon. Friends have come into the Chamber, inspectors will now be worried about asking such inappropriate questions because they might be held to account.

There is a bit of a pattern. I will mention other examples before I sit down because it is important to establish that pattern, and to convince the House that this is not about one aberrant inspector, but has happened in several schools and across several faiths.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problems have arisen partly because of the knee-jerk way with which British values were introduced last summer? In fact, the requirement is actively to promote not other faiths, but respect for, and tolerance of, other faiths. If this had not been introduced in such a rush and with such a knee-jerk reaction, perhaps that would be better understood throughout the system.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree entirely, and we are looking forward to hearing the Minister make that clear. There was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, and perhaps over-zealous Ofsted inspectors have not understood what British values are about. Surely British values are about what our country has always been about, which is tolerance and understanding, not a requirement to promote other people’s religions or values.

We have to wonder how far Christian schools have to go to satisfy the new standards. In September, Bolton Parish Church primary school was told that although

“events such as…Diwali are celebrated…pupils’ understanding of life in modern Britain is underdeveloped.”

Middle Rasen school in my constituency was marked down, apparently because it was too British—a strange problem for north Lincolnshire. How many non-Christian festivals does a Christian school have to celebrate before Ofsted is happy? Faith schools have a legal right to teach their own faith, and English law stipulates that school assemblies and RE should normally be “mainly Christian”, but that has been overridden by inspectors.

Grindon Hall Christian school is one of the top state schools in Sunderland for GCSEs and the top school, state or private, for A-levels. In May 2014, Ofsted rated it good in all areas except leadership and management. In November it was also subject to a no-notice British values inspection—quite alarming for the top performing school in Sunderland. Its primary school pupils were asked if they knew anyone who thought they were in the wrong body. Well, I have sometimes thought that maybe I am in the wrong body—[Laughter.] One parent complained that her 10-year-old daughter was asked if she knew what lesbians did. One sixth-former said that the inspector was

“manipulating the conversation to make us say something to discredit the manner of teaching in school.”

Another said:

“She seemed to have the view that since we are a Christian school we don’t respect other religions and views.”

A third said:

“It felt like she wanted a certain answer from us and wouldn’t be satisfied until she got that answer.”

Ofsted issued a report that rated the school “inadequate”. Despite the fact that it is the best in terms of results, the Ofsted report marks it as the worst of any school in Sunderland. Clearly, results count for nothing.

As with St Benedict’s, Ofsted issued a draft report with phrasing that tipped its hand. The report said:

“The Christian ethos of the school permeates much of the school’s provision. This has restricted the development of a broad and balanced approach to the curriculum.”

I thought the reason why we are such a tolerant and successful country was our Christian heritage, which teaches tolerance and respect for others. Those inspectors clearly regard a Christian ethos as inherently negative. Although the phrase was withdrawn after complaints, the report attacked every area of the school’s performance, not just British values. Hundreds of parents signed a letter to the Secretary of State to urge a review of the report which, they said,

“paints a picture of our school—and our children—that we just do not recognise.”

The Durham free school is a Christian faith school. Department for Education monitoring visits in December 2013 were very positive, but the school was targeted in the November 2014 no-notice inspections. After the inspections, pupils came forward to report questions asked by inspectors that made them feel uncomfortable. Again the views of the inspection team were revealed in the draft report which claimed that

“RE is a narrow study of the Bible”.

Well, I do not know, but I would have thought that in RE it is not a bad idea to study the Bible fairly rigorously. The school told Ofsted that

“only a very small proportion of the RE teaching at any time has constituted study of the Bible…your inspectors simply could not have seen any evidence during the inspection to support this conclusion.”

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does this not, to some extent, call into question the quality of some of the inspectors? A state school in my constituency said that it would be willing to be inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, because by and large it has practising teachers doing inspections, whereas Ofsted by and large does not.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend and I had a meeting with the Secretary of State earlier and he put that point to her. It is worth looking at, and we should learn lessons from the ISI and how it does things.

Ofsted issued a report that rated The Durham free school inadequate in all areas. That caused panic in the DFE and within hours the Secretary of State announced that she was closing the school—

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

For the sake of completeness, the hon. Gentleman should mention that both the north-east schools that he has used as examples were found to be teaching creationism as fact in science and biology.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is not what I have been told. What I have been told is that the pupils were questioned inappropriately and that they were frightened and alarmed. I know nothing about whether the schools were teaching creationism and I make no comment on that. Once the inspectors took a dim view of the schools’ performance on British values, they were marked down heavily. All the Trojan horse schools are still open. Whatever one says about Durham, the allegations against the Trojan horse schools were more serious than anything that was said about Durham. They are still open, yet Durham is to be closed.

Ofsted, too, went into panic mode. Questioned about Durham and Grindon in the Education Committee on 28 January, Sir Michael Wilshaw claimed there was

“very bad homophobic bullying going on in these schools”.

The written Ofsted reports do not say this. Sir Michael’s statement is not being backed up by the Ofsted report. I have had a conversation with the Secretary of State. She has claimed to me and my colleagues that the comments are not true, but they have been reported on and parents have complained to Ofsted in large numbers that the reports are nonsense. One lesbian mum at The Durham free school went to the press to say her daughter had been victimised at a previous school because of her mother’s sexuality, but not at The Durham free school.

Under questioning from the Education Committee, which had been contacted by parents of children at both schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw said that if the inappropriate questioning had taken place, the inspector would be

“dealt with very severely by Ofsted”.

He said, however:

“I assure you that the sort of allegations that have been made in the north-eastern schools have been investigated very thoroughly and we found no substance to them.”

What does “investigated very thoroughly” mean? Does it mean contacting the parents who made the allegations? Does it mean interviewing the pupils? Does it mean interviewing teachers? It does not. According to one of Ofsted’s regional directors, Nick Hudson, who wrote to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on 16 February, it means that Ofsted interviews its own inspectors. Unsurprisingly, the inspectors deny saying the things that would result in them being “dealt with very severely”. No wonder, then, that Ofsted gives itself a clean bill of health.

Sir Michael and Mr Hudson claim there is no evidence. Parents’ letters are, apparently, not evidence. They are simply being treated as if they are untrue. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), who would have been here today but for attending an event in his constituency, has written to the Secretary of State demanding to know why Sir Michael claimed on 28 January that the allegations “have been investigated”—past tense—while the Schools Minister, in a written question on 10 February, told Parliament that

“Ofsted is investigating matters raised”.

Which of these statements is true?

The Minister needs to come to the Dispatch Box and announce that there will be a proper investigation into the complaints of parents at these Jewish and Christian schools. There are too many, with too many similarities, for us to believe that they are all just made up. The Minister must tell us that new guidance will be issued to Ofsted on what constitutes age-appropriate questioning—that is all we are asking for—on sex and sexuality. He must make it clear to Ofsted that having a religious ethos is not a negative thing. Contrary to certain inspectors’ fantasies of Anglican or Catholic jihadism, the religious ethos of a school has the ability to imbue its pupils with lifelong virtues that will make them model citizens. That should be welcomed, not persecuted.

The Minister should remind Ofsted that the law prioritises the teaching of the Christian faith in RE and school assemblies because we are a Christian nation with a Christian heritage. He should require Ofsted to respect religious diversity in education. The problems of a few non-faith schools taken over by Islamic fundamentalists in Birmingham do not justify any aggression towards mainstream faith schools. So-called “British values” is a classic bureaucratic response to a problem and it is damaging Christian schools. The truth is that the real basis of actual British values are Christian values. It is the influence of Christianity that has made us one of the most tolerant and successful nations on earth, not this artificial nonsense—a knee-jerk reaction—dreamed up by officials.

The so-called British values the Government are attempting to force through purport to be upholding a status quo, but they are nothing of the kind. In fact, what we are dealing with is an attempt to destroy the rich diversity that currently exists and replace it with a stultifying conformist ideology that is enforced on all people at all times and everywhere. They are happy for people to be slightly Christian, slightly Jewish or slightly Muslim, so long as that is just a pretty façade for agreeing and conforming with an unforgivingly liberal ideology.

We believe in a different Britain. We believe in a Britain where one is free to be truly Catholic, free to be deeply Anglican, free to be an outright atheist, free to be a faithful Hindu, Sikh, Methodist or whatever one’s conscience calls one to be, or even free not to care at all.

We are faced with two roads—one of narrow ideology and the other of broad tolerance and co-existence—and the Department for Education is at the heart of the decision about which road to take. It must be robust with Ofsted. It should tell it to focus on results and to drop the politics. I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who said that it was not Ofsted’s place to follow every ministerial fad on British values. Ofsted should look at maths and English, not political correctness. The “Book of Proverbs” says:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.

Church schools are a great blessing to our young people, spiritually, morally and educationally. I hope that the Minister will tell us he agrees with these sentiments and will require Ofsted to encourage them in its good work, not undermine them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am grateful to all who have taken part in this debate, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Redcar (Ian Swales) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess), the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and my right hon. Friend the Minister.

In a few moments we are going to pass the motion

“That this House believes that Ofsted should respect the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.”

That will be an important moment and the motion will be a guide to Ofsted. We have all agreed that faith schools —I think I am quoting the Minister here—do not have to promote other faiths, only respect for other faiths. We can all agree on that.

With regard to the particular allegations, there has not been time, unfortunately, for the Minister to deal with them all. They are hotly contested. When the chief inspector writes to me, I hope he will cover the point I made that there is no point in his asking his own inspectors; he must go back to the pupils, parents and teachers. We do not want any more inappropriate questioning of very young people. We want to create an atmosphere in which faith schools have the confidence to actively promote their own faith in the context of respect for others. On that, I am sure we can all agree.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House believes that Ofsted should respect the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.